SAFETY FIRST: MTA says it may have to close overpacked stations for brief periods. Photo: Helayne Seidman

It may soon take more than a MetroCard to get into some overcrowded subway stations.

The MTA has told community leaders in Midtown Manhattan that it could one day be forced to follow London’s policy of shutting subway entrances for short periods to ensure safety if it can’t secure funding to improve passenger flow at the most congested stations.

“What they said to us verbally is some of the stations are threatening to get so overcrowded, at certain times of the day they’d consider closing them down,” said Wally Rubin, district manager of Community Board 5, which includes Grand Central Station.

MTA spokesman Adam Lisberg insisted that’s not imminent and is only a consideration for the future.

“There is zero risk that we will have to start closing entrances tomorrow or anything like that,” he said.

But he also said overcrowding is a major concern and — if there are no funds to widen stairways, reconfigure pathways or take other measures to unclog passenger routes — the long-term risk of entrance closings is real.

A document that the MTA circulated at a meeting last October with CB5 put the deadline for getting the access improvements finished at 2030.

It included photos of a jammed Victoria Station in London, where entrances are sometimes shuttered, with a caption, “What We Want to Avoid.”

The overcrowding issue came up at a forum last week on the administration’s plan to rezone east Midtown to allow for construction of higher office towers.

City Councilman Dan Garodnick (D-Manhattan) argued that the MTA can’t wait for the money that would be generated from the zoning change, which would be generated over many years.“There are infrastructure needs that we have today — even putting aside adding four million square feet of new commercial development and 8,000 people who are anticipated coming into Grand Central for the first time,” he said.

One government official defended the rezoning as at least providing one funding stream for the financially strapped agency.

“Where does he suggest the money should come from?” the official asked of Garodnick.

The MTA estimated it needs $340 million to $465 million to redesign Grand Central’s subway exits and the exits at the Fifth Avenue and East 51st/53rd Street stations, the latter a key transfer hub between the E, M trains from Queens and No. 6 train.

In the frantic afternoon rush hour, the MTA found it took 125 seconds of “processing time” for passengers to navigate the stairway transfer from the southbound Lexington Avenue line platform to the Queens Boulevard line. That’s nearly three times the 45-second recommended guideline.

In the morning rush hour, the “processing time” was put at 115 seconds.

The west platform escalators connecting the two lines are so mobbed that they “present operational difficulties and constraints,” the MTA reported.